#essay ?

[choppun-kun]

When they actually let you choose the font. I want just a little razzle dazzle.

[yujiphoric]

Why I Love Caitlyn, and Why You Hate Her

⚠️ READER DISCRETION: I am not condoning Caitlyn’s actions and behavior, I am simply exploring the depth of her character and explaining what motivated her pursuit of revenge.

There’s no denying the gravity of Caitlyn’s actions—she is responsible for the deaths of thousands and the gassing of Zaun. Her choices are unquestionably wrong. However, her character cannot be reduced to these actions alone. This sudden, devastating behavior of hers is shaped by a thread of complex motivations and circumstances, but many choose not to acknowledge this simply because of her elite background. 

Despite her privileged upbringing, Caitlyn shows a genuine effort to understand and connect with Zaunites. She places her trust in Vi, a Zaunite she’s never met before, to guide her in her search for Silco. Her journey through the undercity opens her eyes to the struggles of its people, challenging her perspective.

In S1E4, when investigating the airship attack, she encounters an undercity resident and reassures him, “I can protect you.” Later in the season, when Vi gets stabbed, Caitlyn encounters someone formerly connected to Vi. He’s grown a distaste over himself due to his appearance, and yet Caitlyn embraces him with compassion and tenderness, as a silent sign of gratitude. Then, she surrenders her cherished firearm—her only means of protection—in return for a healing potion to save Vi. In S1E7, Caitlyn’s heartfelt monologue in her conversation with Ekko perfectly captures her hope and determination: “This city needs healing. More than I ever realized. Please, let me help you.”

When Caitlyn and Vi stand in front of the Council, Caitlyn declares: “Councilors, this is Vi. She was born in the undercity. Even though we failed her in countless ways, she risked everything to show me what life is really like down there. People are starving, sick, ravaged by Shimmer. They live in constant fear of the coordinated efforts of violent crime lords.” This monologue alone shows how Caitlyn embodies optimism, believing in the inherent goodness of people, even Zaunites. It also shows that she is very willing to fight for them; she sees helping Zaunites as an act of bringing justice and equality into this world.

Many overlook the depth of Cassandra and Caitlyn’s relationship, reducing it to a simple narrative of a daughter mourning her mother. However, Caitlyn’s mourning is more layered than that. Throughout her life, she has been rebellious, driven by a desire to uncover the reality her mother tried to shield her from. In S1E4, Caitlyn reflects on this by saying, “She’d do anything to keep me from seeing the real world.” Caitlyn’s defiance wasn’t just rebellion for its own sake—it was a stand for her ideals. She sought enlightenment and understanding, even if it meant stepping outside the privileged bubble her mother built for her. By venturing into the undercity and aligning herself with Vi, Caitlyn rejected her mother's own ideals. In a way, her actions mirror Vi’s: just as Vi betrayed her people by working with the enforcers, Caitlyn betrayed her mother by involving herself with Zaunites. Remember: The last time we see Caitlyn and Cassandra interact on-screen is during Caitlyn’s plea before the Council. And in that moment, Caitlyn was fighting to protect the very kind that would soon kill her own mother.

Many often argue that Caitlyn’s drastic shift is unjustified, as she’s only experienced a fraction of the suffering Zaunites have been enduring. But that’s precisely the point! Her transformation shows how personal loss can drive the change of one’s entire character; she’s never experienced loss before which is why it feels so heavy for her. And unlike Zaunites, Caitlyn actually has the power to act on her grief. Zaunites have only known misery their whole lives. When their loved one dies, they know there is nothing more they can do but grieve. They don’t have an inch of the privilege and military support Caitlyn has. If you had given them the same resources as Caitlyn, they wouldn’t hesitate to bring ruin to Piltover. Simply put, they don’t fight Piltovans because they don’t want to, but because they can’t.

When Jinx takes her mother away, her compassionate ideals completely shatter. Having always sought justice and understanding for Zaun, Caitlyn feels deeply betrayed, as her faith in the good within every Zaunite is overturned. Her mother’s death becomes a turning point—driving her to abandon her ideals and adopt Piltover’s disdain for the undercity, finally understanding the resentment many Piltovans harbor.

We also tend to forget that, aside from losing her mother, Caitlyn has directly suffered under the hands of Jinx. Caitlyn was held captive by Jinx in Season 1—and God knows what was done to her during that period. In the dinner scene, we see Caitlyn break down in tears, visibly flinching when Jinx moves toward her. It’s clear that Jinx has traumatized Caitlyn not just once, but twice. These experiences deeply shape Caitlyn’s actions moving forward. The pain and fear she’s endured push her to a place where she’s willing to sacrifice almost anything, even if it means putting a child’s life at risk (Isha's) or severing ties with Vi.

While they share their differences, Caitlyn and Jinx are the perfect example of foil characters. Here’s an instance which proves this: Both allow themselves to be influenced by their manipulative parental figures after losing their real parents. 

Jinx is haunted by guilt; her attempt to save her family only ended up killing them, leaving her with the crushing weight of self-blame. She clings to Silco, not because he was the father she needed, but because he was the father she wanted. Silco indulged her destructive tendencies, keeping her at an all-time high on the edges of chaos. Fragile and broken, Powder crossed paths with Silco at the right moment; he saw the perfect chance to mold her into someone bewildered, unrestrained, and astray.

Caitlyn has her own Silco: Ambessa, the ruthless Noxian leader with a brutal philosophy of war. Ambessa enters Caitlyn’s life at a pivotal moment, stepping in just as Caitlyn is grappling with the devastating loss of her mother. In a spiral of self-identity, Caitlyn struggles with the weight of Piltover’s expectations and her unresolved guilt over her strained relationship with her mother (as explained in previous paragraphs). Just as young Powder mourns her family, Caitlyn blames herself for the death of her mother. Caitlyn got herself involved with the Zaunites even when she was warned not to, and at the expense of her defiance came the death of her mother. Driven by guilt and a thirst for vengeance, Caitlyn steps fully into her role, declaring in S2E1: “I am a decorated officer. Leader of House Kiramman.”

This inner turmoil is exactly why Ambessa’s manipulation is so effective. Caitlyn is compelled to take revenge, but she doesn’t know how to. And without anyone else to guide her, she places her complete trust in Ambessa's expertise. Ambessa doesn’t just give Caitlyn the authority and power to avenge her mother; she teaches her how to use them to their full potential. She toys with Caitlyn's vulnerability, making her adopt the Noxian values of wrath, bloodshed, and ruthlessness. 

It’s easy to downplay Caitlyn’s grief since she comes from an elite upbringing. While Cassandra Kiramman is laid to rest in a golden casket with a proper burial, countless innocents in Zaun become victims of merciless violence, being left to die on the streets. After the timeskip however, Caitlyn is shown to recognize the moral cost of her actions. Though the series portrays this realization subtly, it becomes evident that Caitlyn is grappling with the inhumanity and immorality of her pursuit of revenge. In S2E4, this internal conflict comes to light during her conversation with Ambessa. When Ambessa attempts to stoke her fury again, Caitlyn disarms her with a piercing question: “Why is peace always the justification for violence?”

Here's another scene that subtly depicts her realization and remorse:

Caitlyn: You're a monster. Why? Why do all this? Singed: Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? ... For love.

When Caitlyn steps further and sees Orianna, she realizes that Singed's revenge is a reflection of her own: a person grieving the death of their family member. Here, there's a saddened glint in her eyes. She finally understands now, that love and grief made her do things that once seemed so foreign to her. In this case, going against her own principles just to succeed in her revenge.

Caitlyn is now forever haunted by the outcome of her dictatorship, but she knows her past cannot be erased. During her confrontation with Jinx in the prison, she admits, “No amount of good deeds can undo our crimes.” While this statement is directed at Jinx, it feels like Caitlyn also holds this against herself for her wrongdoings. 

Caitlyn’s acts of atonement are done quietly. She’s not good with words; she’s bad at articulating how she feels. Ironically, Vi is much better than Caitlyn when it comes to confronting and vocalizing internal conflict. So instead, Caitlyn’s actions speak for herself. By removing the guards at the prison, she tacitly allows Vi the opportunity to rescue Jinx. She knows Vi will come to save her sister, and yet she lets her. She finally lets go of Jinx and the grudge she held against her, as a silent act of her love for Vi.

And in S2E9, Sevika is shown to be sitting among the Councilors. But thanks to a fan's keen eyes, we find out that she is sat particularly on Cassandra Kiramman's chair (which not many notice). By allowing a Zaunite to occupy her mother's seat, Caitlyn gives them a chance to be rightfully represented, a chance for their voices and suffering to finally be heard. It’s a quiet display of Caitlyn’s evolution and willingness to bridge the divide between Piltover and Zaun.

That said, Arcane’s ending left much to be desired regarding Caitlyn’s arc. The heavy focus on Hextech overshadowed the sociopolitical dynamics of Piltover and Zaun. This is the main reason a lot of hate is thrown toward Caitlyn—there is an act of accountability, but there a lack of consequence. While Caitlyn acknowledges her mistakes, her privileged status keeps her from real repercussions, unlike the tragedy other characters had to face. This is frustrating, even to me, as someone whose favorite character is Caitlyn. Yet, in a way, it realistically portrays the inequalities in our own world—where the elite are often shielded from justice, and repentance is the closest they ever come to redemption.

[yourpalsalamander]

IMPORTANT.

share this as much as possible, @ people, do anything- I'm trying to write an essay and I wanna see personal statistics.

Please be as honest as possible with your response, if you have another opinion please share it in a reblog or comment.

EDIT: Shark lovers I see you, I am one of you, but PLEASE remember that this is for a question about if you fear sharks, consider sharks directly dangerous, or consider sharks safe to you 💔

[agent-44mc]

the phrase "girls girl" is sexism evolved and created in fear of being labeled as misandry and/or the south's fear of being labeled of a leftist, liberal, or feminist.

I am all for being a girls girl, but men aren’t required to like all men. Women now are required to like all women and everything about them. We must like someone’s music just because a woman made it. They can’t be competitive and trash talk like men because that’s not being inclusive for all women. We can’t talk about how we dislike a certain style, god forbid we hate a certain style; god forbid we say we hate something a woman is a part of.

women can take the same amount of criticism a man gets. BUT. Women shouldn’t be criticized just for being a woman. They shouldn’t be harmed, discriminated, hated just for BEING a woman.

I hate this new “girls girl” culture. I hate how people criticize Taylor Swift (womp womp) for being competitive on the charts and calling her “not a girls girl” simply for doing what a man would do with other men.

men don’t have to be a “boys boy” or whatever. Why?

Even in “feminist culture” we see harmful things.

don’t just say you’re a girls girl to gentrify and make yourself less scary to men. Say you’re a feminist. Criticize women. Advocate on your own life that every woman, even the ones you criticize are safe and treated as equal.

We are now held to the same standard we were in 1950 to always be pleasant and never to hate anyone. But it's been re-branded to being a girls girl.

But it's so entertaining when we are, isn't it? That's something we may never escape no matter what we do.

Be someone who fights for women. Be someone who believes all women are equal and all deserve to live life as freely as men. But you do not have to like every woman, just as you come prepared in mind that you may not be liked.

All that is truly important is that we don't put down other women to intentionally HURT them. There is a line between simply not liking a woman and putting them down intentionally.

AND WHILE I'M ON THE SUBJECT, I am also tired of this "pick-me" shit that's been going around. Blatant sexism that comes stems from the expectation of how women should act. You have no cause to call a woman a pick me just for mentioning that she likes video games, or may just get along better with boys- it depends on how she treats about women. That is all that matters!

And yes- you get to not like her. Because? We're human too.

Writing this very essay has made me feel inhuman. We need a guide on how to be morally right because we keep having to put up with how society wants us to be. We should be girls girls, but we also need to entertain by getting pulled into rivalries intentionally for the sake of.

If you skipped everything I said, this is the only thing you need to worry about. TREAT EVERYONE AS EQUAL AND HAVING SUCH EQUALITY TO EXERCISE AN INHERENT LIKE TO OUR OWN FUCKING FEELINGS TOWARD PEOPLE. TREAT EVERYONE AS EQUAL; AS YOU WOULD NOT CARE FOR ONE TO DISLIKE YOU, BUT WOULD CARE VERY MUCH IF THEY ALLOWED YOU TO BE HARMED, EMOTIONALLY OR PHYSICALLY. BUT- HATING OR DISLIKING SOMEONE FOR A QUALITY THEY WERE BORN WITH CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED BY ANY FORM; UNLESS SAID QUALITY HARMS OTHERS.

THAT IS FEMINISM. LIBERATE YOURSELF FROM THE NARRATIVE AND GO FREELY.

[boomstab-papa]

Oh absolutely, giving misogynists captive girlfriends/wives isn't going to fix anything. Being a little more misogynist to try to appease misogynists won't work.

But "giving any credence" is such an interesting phrase to use here, because it's so ambiguous and also accusatory. What does "giving credence" mean? Who has been doing it? What have they been advocating for? Who, for example, has been saying leftists should be more misogynist, and how?

I'm not alone in this confusion, either, there are several comments on the tweet who are equally perplexed.

The fact is that the left DOES NEED a better approach to people who are feeling lost, angry, and scared.

Alt-right "self-help" authors and programs are hugely popular. These predators target lost, scared, and angry people. They're cults, really. And no matter how much the left discusses things like "can we stop parroting bioessentialist bullshit because hey, men aren't destined to be misogynistic assholes"... these alt-right cultists don't ever even have to TALK TO a leftist to repeatedly hear "leftists hate you for being born white/male/rich/etc". I really can't get over how Rush Limbaugh popularized the term "feminiazi" and told an entire generation that feminists were angry man-haters when they literally are not. But that's exactly how the grift works!! I should know, I grew up in exactly this Rush Limbaugh kind of house!!

"Don't blame the hyper-wealthy for ruining the economy, blame women and foreigners for taking all the jobs! Don't blame the ruined economy when nobody wants to have kids anymore, blame the women! Don't blame patriarchy and all the misogyny it taught you when women avoid your misogynist ass, blame the women! Remember, the feminazis hate you!!"

So what to do?

On an interpersonal level, sometimes it can be really easy. This is a comment made to Innuendo Studios's video "How to Radicalize A Normie" on this exact topic (which I highly recommend watching).

"Hey, ex-alt-right member here. First, really like this series. I feel like you’re validating the radicalization that me and my male friends experienced. Putting it into words and showing us how we got tricked, exposing the magician and their tricks. Second, I vot out not through argument and discussion but actually through feelings. I was very edgy and would use the n-word in jokes all the time. My male friends would not call me out on it. But a female friend of mine said it made her uncomfortable and that she didn’t appreciate these jokes when we played fortnite together. That shook me to my core as I cared for my friend and that’s how my deradicaliztion started. Just wanted to add in this personal story, keep up the great work :)"

If this is someone you know, tell them their behavior is not cool.

THIS GOES DOUBLE FOR THE MEN READING THIS. Misogynists are more likely to listen to you than they are to listen to women!! If someone is being a shithead in your vicinity, consider: are you gonna let it slide? Or are you maybe, possibly, going to be the one thing that yanks them out of a hatespiral and prompts them to re-examine their hateful worldview? Tell them "hey not cool".

This might not work the first time. This might not work at all for some people. But if the situation is relatively safe, then it's worth trying.

And this does not mean that you personally are responsible for "centering men in your conversations" or "marginalized people putting in even more emotional labor" or "if a man is misogynist it's because you failed him" what the fuck ever like I've seen in this discourse. Come the fuck on.

It means you can probably try saying something to somebody you know. And if it doesn't work? You can say you tried.

On a policy level, we have more work to do. It shouldn't come as a surprise to any leftist that the current economic and political system in the USA exists to separate and exploit people. I think we all agree it really sucks to live in a system like this. Your average reactionary misogynist also thinks the system sucks, but as explained above, they've been trained to place the blame on some convenient scapegoats instead. Immigrants. Women. Queer people. Muslims. Anybody who's not white. Et cetera. "Government needs to get out of the way of smart people and then Elon Musk will build a utopia for The Faithful (which includes me) on Mars" or some shit.

These people need to hear that their anger is justified, but that their blame is misplaced. They need policies that will hold the responsible parties accountable. They need policies that won't leave them impoverished and isolated and exhausted after working a 40+ hour work week. They need to realize the system isn't sorting people into "the worthy rich" and "the unworthy poor", rather, that it's exploiting everyone except the wealth-owning class. They need to realize it's their politicians' biggest campaign donors that are doing this to them.

The Democratic Party needs to actually talk about this. I'll be dangerously pithy here: the Democratic Party needs to sound more like Bernie Fucking Sanders. Politicians need to oppose health insurance companies and get Medicare For All going. Politicians need to stop voting to give the military two fucking billion dollars every single day and fund free college and trade schools. Politicians need to tell business interests to fuck off and get a livable minimum wage AND a universal basic income passed, which will severely undercut employers' ability to exploit and isolate us.

And we need Citizens United repealed. Badly. I'm not trying to imply the problem is only with Republicans' campaign donors, because Democrats' biggest campaign donors are also often the same people exploiting us. But look at how Democrats did a tiny little bit of pro-union and anti-trust work these past 4 years and they screamed bloody fucking murder. If Democrats are relying on these people's money to get them elected, I think it's going to be really hard to get policies passed that will actually make USAmericans safer and happier (ie. address Republicans' economic fears that they keep blaming on various scapegoats).

Although with Republicans controlling the entire Federal government for the next two years minimum, this feels more distant than ever.

That's what we need to be taking seriously. If you don't give any credence to the fears and insecurities underlying the horrifying reactionary politics, you're not actually addressing anything. If you can't admit that capitalism fucks all of us over and makes all of us miserable and looking for a remedy, are you even a leftist?

[nyancrimew]

NEW ESSAY: anarchism starts in the now: hope for a better future

there is still time

cover art: @punkitt-is-here

[manicpixiedckgirl]

one thing you have to get ready for as a trans woman who's about to come out is certain cis people are going want nothing to do with you afterwards. we all know this, we all talk about this. transphobes going transphobe

but what i dont think we talk about enough is you need to be prepared for a second wave of this. it will come later. it's not tied to anything body change or surgery or whatever.

trans women are treated so poorly by society that we inevitably shrink. we learn how to exist in the spaces that will have us, even if that means cramming ourselves into boxes that don't really fit, being treated in ways we often don't like, doing things we often don't like doing, often even fucking people we don't want to fuck.

at some point, you're going to learn to stand up for yourself. i don't say this to scare you into thinking you'll become a 'mean trans girl' or whatever. but just like transitioning in the first place, it's change or die. you found the first safe harbor and fashioned your anchor to it but you can't go on living with people who don't respect you, working a job you're too smart for, living a life you don't really love.

and when you do, there will be cis people in your life who only liked that meek, quiet girl who would do as she's told. some of these people were malicious, doing it on purpose because they've known enough trans women to know who's vulnerable. some are doing it unintentionally, believing themselves to be a good ally, you've just gotten angry and bitter (this one hurts the most). and some just plain won't like the person you really are, having only known the people pleaser they got to know.

but it's change or die. if you're not you, you're not living. there are so many better people just waiting to love you, but you won't find them chasing after cis approval. and girl, i promise you, you deserve so much more than what you're getting right now. be strong. you've been strong before. i love you.

[mcmansionhell]

the motel room, or: on datedness

I.

Often I find myself nostalgic for things that haven't disappeared yet. This feeling is enhanced by the strange conviction that once I stop looking at these things, I will never see them again, that I am living in the last moment of looking. This is sense is strongest for me in the interiors of buildings perhaps because, like items of clothing, they are of a fashionable nature, in other words, more impermanent than they probably should be.

As I get older, to stumble on something truly dated, once a drag, is now a gift. After over a decade of real estate aggregation and the havoc it's wreaked on how we as a society perceive and decorate houses, if you're going to Zillow to search for the dated (which used to be like shooting fish in a barrel), you'll be searching aimlessly, for hours, to increasingly no avail, even with all the filters engaged. (The only way to get around this is locational knowledge of datedness gleaned from the real world.) If you try to find images of the dated elsewhere on the internet, you will find that the search is not intuitive. In this day and age, you cannot simply Google "80s hotel room" anymore, what with the disintegration of the search engine ecosystem and the AI generated nonsense and the algorithmic preference for something popular (the same specific images collected over and over again on social media), recent, and usually a derivative of the original search query (in this case, finding material along the lines of r/nostalgia or the Backrooms.)

To find what one is looking for online, one must game the search engine with filters that only show content predating 2021, or, even better, use existing resources (or those previously discovered) both online and in print. In the physical world of interiors, to find what one is looking for one must also now lurk around obscure places, and often outside the realm of the domestic which is so beholden to and cursed by the churn of fashion and the logic of speculation. Our open world is rapidly closing, while, paradoxically, remaining ostensibly open. It's true, I can open Zillow. I can still search. In the curated, aggregated realm, it is becoming harder and harder to find, and ultimately, to look.

But what if, despite all these changes, datedness was never really searchable? This is a strange symmetry, one could say an obscurity, between interiors and online. It is perhaps unintentional, and it lurks in the places where searching doesn't work, one because no one is searching there, or two, because an aesthetic, for all our cataloguing, curation, aggregation, hoarding, is not inherently indexable and even if it was, there are vasts swaths of the internet and the world that are not categorized via certain - or any - parameters. The internet curator's job is to find them and aggregate them, but it becomes harder and harder to do. They can only be stumbled upon or known in an outside, offline, historical or situational way. If to index, to aggregate, is, or at least was for the last 30 years, to profit (whether monetarily or in likes), then to be dated, in many respects, is the aesthetic manifestation of barely breaking even. Of not starting, preserving, or reinventing but just doing a job.

We see this online as well. While the old-web Geocities look and later Blingee MySpace-era swag have become aestheticized and fetishized, a kind of naive art for a naive time, a great many old websites have not received the same treatment. These are no less naive but they are harder to repackage or commodify because they are simple and boring. They are not "core" enough.

As with interiors, web datedness can be found in part or as a whole. For example, sites like Imgur or Reddit are not in and of themselves dated but they are full of remnants, of 15-year old posts and their "you, sir, have won the internet" vernacular that certainly are. Other websites are dated because they were made a long time ago by and for a clientele that doesn't have a need or the skill to update (we see this often with Web 2.0 e-commerce sites that figured out how to do a basic mobile page and reckoned it was enough). The next language of datedness, like the all-white landlord-special interior, is the default, clean Squarespace restaurant page, a landing space that's the digital equivalent of a flyer, rarely gleaned unless someone needs a menu, has a food allergy or if information about the place is not available immediately from Google Maps. I say this only to maintain that there is a continuity in practices between the on- and off-line world beyond what we would immediately assume, and that we cannot blame everything on algorithms.

But now you may ask, what is, exactly, datedness? Having spent two days in a distinctly dated hotel room, I've decided to sit in utter boredom with the numinous past and try and pin it down.

II.

I am in an obscure place. I am in Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, on assignment. I am staying at a specific motel, the Voyageur. By my estimation the hotel was originally built in the late seventies and I'd be shocked if it was older than 1989. The hotel exterior was remodeled sometime in the 2000s with EIFS cladding and beige paint. Above is a picture of my room, which, forgive me, is in the process of being inhabited. American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) hotel rooms are some of the most churned through, renovated spaces in the world, and it's pretty rare, unless you're staying in either very small towns or are forced by economic necessity to stay at real holes in the wall, to find ones from this era. The last real hitter for me was a 90s Day's Inn in the meme-famous Breezewood, PA during the pandemic.

At first my reaction to seeing the room was cautionary. It was the last room in town, and certainly compared to other options, probably not the world's first choice. However, after staying in real, genuine European shitholes covering professional cycling I've become a class-A connoisseur of bad rooms. This one was definitively three stars. A mutter of "okay time to do a quick look through." But upon further inspection (post-bedbug paranoia) I came to the realization that maybe the always-new brainrot I'd been so critical of had seeped a teeny bit into my own subconscious and here I was snubbing my nose at a blessing in disguise. The room is not a bad room, nor is it unclean. It's just old. It's dated. We are sentimental about interiors like this now because they are disappearing, but they are for my parents what 2005 beige-core is for me and what 2010s greige will become for the generation after. When I'm writing about datedness, I'm writing in general using a previous era's examples because datedness, by its very nature, is a transitional status. Its end state is the mixed emotion of seeing things for what they are yet still appreciating them, expressed here.

Datedness is the period between vintage and contemporary. It is the sentiment between quotidian and subpar. It is uncurated and preserved only by way of inertia, not initiative. It gives us a specific feeling we don't necessarily like, one that is deliberately evoked in the media subcultures surrounding so-called "liminal" spaces: the fuguelike feeling of being spatially trapped in a time while our real time is passing. Datedness in the real world is not a curated experience, it is only what was. It is different from nostalgia because it is not deliberately remembered, yearned for or attached to sweetness. Instead, it is somehow annoying. It is like stumbling into the world of adults as a child, but now you're the adult and the child in you is disappointed. (The real child-you forgot a dull hotel room the moment something more interesting came along.) An image of my father puts his car keys on the table, looks around and says, "It'll do." We have an intolerance for datedness because it is the realization of what sufficed. Sufficiency in many ways implies lack.

However, for all its datedness, many, if not all, of the things in this room will never be seen again if the room is renovated. They will become unpurchaseable and extinct. Things like the bizarrely-patterned linoleum tile in the shower, the hose connecting to the specific faucet of the once-luxurious (or at least middling) jacuzzi tub whose jets haven't been exercised since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wide berth of the tank on the toilet. There is nothing, really, worth saving about these things. Even the most sentimental among us wouldn't dare argue that the items and finishes in this room are particularly important from a design or historical standpoint. Not everything old has a patina. They're too cheaply made to salvage. Plastic tile. Bowed plywood. The image-artifacts of these rooms, gussied up for Booking dot com, will also, inevitably disappear, relegated to the dustheap of web caches and comments that say "it was ok kinda expensive but close to twon (sic)." You wouldn't be able to find them anyway unless you were looking for a room.

One does, of course, recognize a little bit of design in what's here. Signifiers of an era. The wood-veneer of the late 70s giving way to the pastel overtones of the 80s. Perhaps even a slow 90s. The all-in-one vanity floating above the floor, a modernist basement bathroom hallmark. White walls as a sign of cleanliness. Gestures, in the curved lines of the nightstands, towards postmodernity. Metallic lamp bases with wide-brimmed shades, a whisper of glamor. A kind of scalloped aura to the club chairs. The color teal mediated through hundreds if not thousands of shoes. Yellowing plastic, including the strips of "molding" that visually tie floor to wall. These are remnants (or are they intuitions?) of so many movements and micromovements, none of them definite enough to point to the influence of a single designer, hell, even of a single decade, just strands of past-ness accumulated into one thread, which is cheapness. Continuity exists in the materials only because everything was purchased as a set from a wholesale catalog.

In some way a hotel is supposed to be placeless. Anonymous. Everything tries to be that way now, even houses. Perhaps because we don't like the way we spy on ourselves and lease our images out to the world so we crave the specificity of hotel anonymity, of someplace we move through on our way to bigger, better or at least different things. The hotel was designed to be frictionless but because it is in a little town, it sees little use and because it sees little use, there are elements that can last far longer than they were intended and which inadvertently cause friction. (The janky door unlocks with a key. The shower hose keeps coming out of the faucet. It's deeply annoying.)

Lack of wear and lack of funds only keep them that way. Not even the paper goods of the eighties have been exhausted yet. Datedness is not a choice but an inevitability. Because it is not a choice, it is not advertised except in a utilitarian sense. It is kept subtle on the hotel websites, out of shame. Because it does not subscribe to an advertiser's economy of the now, of the curated type rather than the "here is my service" type, it disappears into the folds of the earth and cannot be searched for in the way "design" can. It can only be discovered by accident.

When I look at all of these objects and things, I do so knowing I will never see them again, at least not all here together like this, as a cohesive whole assembled for a specific purpose. I don't think I'll ever have reason to come back to this town or this place, which has given me an unexpected experience of being peevish in my father's time. Whenever I end up in a place like this, where all is as it was, I get the sense that it will take a very long time for others to experience this sensation again with the things my generation has made. The machinations of fashion work rapaciously to make sure that nothing is ever old, not people, not rooms, not items, not furniture, not fabrics, not even design, that old matron who loves to wax poetic about futurity and timelessness. The plastic-veneered particleboard used here is now the bedrock of countless landfills. Eventually it will become the chemical-laced soil upon which we build our condos. It is possible that we are standing now at the very last frontier of our prior datedness. The next one has not yet elided. It's a special place. Spend a night. Take pictures.

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[yippee-kay-yo]

Yeah, I am guilty probably of the whole weeabo thing but I am trying to get better at characterizing him in my artwork. His character is so much more than that and it’s much more interesting to explore it rather than simplify it. And this goes for any character, really!

Spamton’s Personality and Complex Morality

Incoming autistic tl;dr ramble post while drunk concerning Spamton being woobified to the point of lacking any semblance to the original character.  

For some reason, many people forget or ignore Spamton's more of an “asshole victim” or “evil victim” by the time Kris and the gang met him. It’s interesting how frequent this is too. 

Of course, Spamton is not a woobie. He's not some innocent man caught in circumstance through no action or fault of his own. Neither is he someone who does things for "teh evulz". Spamton's more layered and complex than that imo, even with the limited information.

With that in mind, my interpretation of Spamton's entire being and arc through time has been inspired by several fictional characters I love. Those characters are: Kevin Lomax, Walter White, Seymour Krelborn, and Shou Tucker.

( I swear to god all of them wearing glasses and having themes associated with green was not initially intentional in my selection lmao. )

Currently, there's little to go on concerning Spamton's prior lore and who he was as a person through his actions. All we know is he was determined. He was anxious and desperate concerning the circumstances of this life. Of the lack of success in what it is an addison's meant to do. Those traits are expressed to varying degrees with each referenced character throughout all of Spamton's eras.

Kevin Lomax is a successful small-town lawyer whose innate pride makes it easy for John Milton, Kevin's future benefactor from NY, to exploit through tempting offers. Walter White's a brilliant and prideful chemist humbled by and chained to a more moderate and financially troubled life until given the choice to rejoin his former company or go his own way making meth. Seymour Krelborn's a meek, socially neglected / abused, and impoverished florist longing for a better life whose dreams turn to greed with the influence of Audrey ii. Shou Tucker’s a timid and desperate man who succumbs to harming those he loves to feed into his desperation and pride.

My take on Spamton encompasses all these traits into one little white fluffball. He's neurotic. Forever fearful of his misfortune and how others perceive him. This even extends to his big shot era where, despite his success, Spamton's aware of his incompetence and that the admiration's surface level is thanks to his benefactor. This is a trait and aspect of his arc he shares with Seymour in the 1986 LSoH film. He's a failure at what he does before his benefactor similar to Shou. No matter his attempts, he just can't cut it on his own. Like Walter, Spamton lives in obscurity compared to his peers with financial troubles far beyond his capacity to properly cope. And like Kevin, and later Seymour to some extent, when Spamton does obtain success through his benefactor, he pushes people away and causes strife through his hyper-focus on work and maintaining success.

All four men share aspects of greed and pride alongside Spamton. Kevin is successful on his own. Yet his wife Mary Ann, ironically a car salesman, and Milton both feed into his pride unintentionally ( via Mary Ann ) and intentionally ( via Milton ). Kevin, wanting more and knowing his capacity as a lawyer, accepts. While in NY, Kevin excuses his actions to explain and justify the consequences of them to continue the upward climb. It goes so far at the expense of his wife's life, though entirely unintentional on Kevin's part. Walter's similar, so I won't get into his arc.

Seymour's interesting in that he's also woobified by fans when in reality, he's a greedy and envious person, even if it's subtle. Greed allows Seymour to reluctantly excuse his actions to gain fame. His greed, envy of Orin, and resentment of Mushnik motivate Seymour to do horrible things. And of course, Shou needs little to no explanation. Greed tied with desperation fueled his actions...

I think Spamton's aspects of greed, envy, and pride were more subtle like Seymour's in the beginning. His personality and desperation more akin to Shou's. And honestly, a pinch of pride is good concerning self-esteem, determination, and motivation. It's when it's detrimental to one's self and others that it becomes a disorder.

Once Spamton gains a benefactor and becomes a big shot, his pride and greed metastasize to that of Kevin and Walter.

The other interesting thing of note is Seymour and Kevin both had benefactors giving them free will concerning choice laced with temptation.

Both Seymour and Kevin blame their benefactors for their inevitable misfortunes. When this happens, both benefactors correctly state they, Seymour and Kevin respectfully, made their choices with either clear knowledge of what could happen or knew their prior action's consequences and ignored them anyways.

"You blamin' me for Mary Ann? Oh I hope you're kidding… Mary Ann - you could've saved her any time you liked. All she wanted was love. ... Stop deluding yourself! I told you to take care of your wife! What did I say? 'The world would understand.' Didn't I say that? What did you do? 'You know what scares me, John? I leave the case, she gets better, and then I hate her for it.' Remember?" - John Milton

I think something similar occurred with Spamton and his benefactor. Despite his complaints and awareness of restrained free will, he still had some level of it. Even if he was controlled in a manner akin to Seymour, Spamton chose things that caused him and others harm along with his success. During this time, he also began rubbing his success in the faces of colleagues and friends who doubted or mocked him. Eventually, it got to the point that it caused his closest loved one, Blue, to disengage.

I think Spamton, despite the limited lore, has the potential for rich complexity concerning his more sour traits as a person. Like both games, there are many realities and routes. What you do decides what innate traits grow.

Spamton, to me, is in all paths of the game, corrupt on some level. None of them show a reality in which he is, by all accounts, a good man. And this is to not dismiss the reality that he is a victim of society, best explained here. We don't know much about his big shot era beyond him becoming a bit pompous. But... Wouldn't the best addison be that? A braggart of their wares and a confidence man? But he's also a culprit of his own demise while being potentially exploited by other entities.

With this in mind, Spamton best mirrors Seymour in the totality of his arc.

Both Spamton and Seymour are pathetic men by societal standards. While Seymour has a talent as a self-taught botanist of sorts, he's relegated to a basement at a struggling florist shop. His meekness and apathy are mirrored by his living conditions.

Spamton's similar in a different way. Unlike Seymour, he's determined, but like Seymour, is likely too meek and neurotic to be effective in his goals. Spamton can't keep a clear head nor direct himself convincingly.

Both men are forced into societal roles with limited choice. Seymour by Mushnik is pushed around and then later so by Audrey ii. Spamton, despite his passion to be a salesman, is seemingly limited to that alone based on what he is, an addison. It is likely taboo for an addison to have any passion outside of that. In one of my fics, Spamton was a mailman before attempting to work in sales and admits to loving that job.

Seymour and Spamton have benefactors. Seymour's is Audrey ii. Spamton's the person on the phone.

Both operate under the commands, suggestions, and temptations their benefactors provide. And both find success with their benefactors.

Seymour clearly loses aspects of free will with his due to his meekness and their relationship. I imagine Spamton, on some level, endured something similar. Especially with his theme being the loss of autonomy the more he pursues it.

Both are seen as tools by society and exploited as such; living in poverty in some regard with Spamton becoming homeless.

I think what makes Spamton woobie fodder is the state we find him in. The fact that by all accounts, he did what he was expected to do as an addison. That when he needed help the most, he was neglected and worse still, everyone knew and did nothing.

His friends and colleagues knew where he was as they show up at the end of the battle. They did nothing for years.

And it's this I think that blinds people to the fact that Spamton knowingly sold harmful and useless wares at his shop. That he tried convincing Kris to commit to his delusional murder-suicide pact so they'd both be free. That, in the Snowgrave run, he takes over Cyber City like a virus to the harm of its citizens. That the thorn ring "might sting" instead of "it literally takes away your life" when selling to Kris for Noelle to use.

At the end of the day as a said before, Spamton's more akin to an "asshole victim" than a full-on woobie. But maybe we can get the best of both. He can be the "asshole woobie".

Thanks for coming to my autistic Ted Talk.

[writer-logbook]

How to introduce your character in 3 steps

A friend of mine was the source of this very pertinent question. So I decided to write a blog entry about it. Because how do you introduce your character without sounding fake ?

Remember that, in real life situation, no one calls you by your name. Have you noticed that none of your friends is adressing you by your name, unless they're trying to get your attention or that something serious is happening ? That should be the same in your story : find a situation where it is relevant to use names. Or stick to nicknames, which is a more common way to address your friends.

Use another character. If you can’t come up with a situation, you can always rely on a side character to introduce your MC. It’s also the perfect way to describe your character rather than simply using mirror, which is convenient yet very cliché. But the fun thing to do is to make several characters talk about your MC : their opinion might go in different directions due to their relationships, their own sensibility and attention to details. It’s also a good way to breath life into your side characters so please consider that option seriously.

The reader doesn’t need to know everything, especially on the very first page. Unless the info is relevant to the plot, there is no need for the reader to know MC’s favourite food or eye’s color. If you’re on character-sheet-side (which I’m not btw), you should be careful about wether the reader the story will progress or not. Try to be balanced !

What I really want to stress in this article is the importance of action when introducing your character. You want the reader to know your character is courageous ? Put them directly into a situation where they can show courage. You want to describe their hair color ? What about that moment when the light is flickering in a way that gives their hair a peculiar effect that catches the eye of another character ?

Don’t worry, your creativity will always find a way ~

[k9effect]

Tiktok's censorship of words like rape, kill, murder, abortion etc. etc. as well as censoring hard to hear topics, over the past few years has deeply contributed to the sanitisation of the internet and therefore directly resulted in the birth of "fandom purists" and the destruction of old fandom culture (the death of "don't like, don't read", "ship and let ship" mindsets as well as safe spaces for dark and "immoral"/unethical storytelling i.e "dead dove: do not eat") in a way that has fundamentally changed the mindsets of people who are new to fandom spaces and now view these such topics as wildly inappropriate for any social space as well as deeming anyone who is intrigued by them narratively or creatively as "immoral" and a bad person. In this essay I will

[abedalahdiaburas]

The children have returned to their studies, but without a school or shelter. ☹️

They are my siblings’ children, enduring the hardships of war in Gaza. 💔

🇵🇸🍉

Vetted by @/gazavetters and is #2 on their vetted list. Also personally confirmed and vetted by @/mohammedalanqer ( #174 on Verified fundraiser list by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi )

@sabertoothwalrus @90-ghost @ankle-beez

@afro-elf @anarcho-smarmyism @amygdalae

@a-shade-of-blue @lesbianmaxevans

@leepacey @leepacey @lexbianrose @moringmark @nonbinarymerbabe @briaristheworst @bundibird @weirdmarioenemies @queenofglitch @ot3

💔🍉🇵🇸

[flowerytale]

Virginia Woolf, from A Room of One’s Own

[dootznbootz]

Penelope is also Athena's pet/blorbo/special little mortal/etc. and if you think otherwise you're straight up wrong.

You're also wrong if you think Athena only likes Penelope because of Odysseus and/or Telemachus. As if Athena didn't see a young Penelope pull some shit and immediately think "Oh! Another mind to mold! C'mere you! Let's do some riddles and weaving!". Athena was happy that two of her favorite pets have met and fell in love!

[lifeinpoetry]

History is full of people who just didn’t. They said no thank you, turned away, ran away to the desert, stood on the streets in rags, lived in barrels, burned down their own houses, walked barefoot through town, killed their rapists, pushed away dinner, meditated into the light.

— Anne Boyer, from "No," published on the Poetry Foundation blog